Public Policies and Social Movements: The Implications of Protest Movements on Mining Policy in Turkey

Abstract

This article proposes that public policy and social movements literatures can help each one another achieve for a better understanding of the role of social movements in the process of public policy formation. In order to illustrate this suggestion, taking insights from both types of literatures, we investigate how and to what extent the anti-gold-mining protest movements in Izmir-Bergama, Usak-Esme, Izmir-Efemcukuru, and Canakkale-Balikesir have influenced the mining policy in Turkey since 1985. The results indicate that a centralized policy-making tradition can influence atin what stage of the policy-making process protest movements emerge, and what kindssorts of tactics are pursued. The results also show that the repressive attitude against the protest movements adopted by an advocacy coalition formed between the governments and multinational companies to further enforce the existing policy, can lead to the growth of thegrowing opposition against the existing policy through the emergence of new protest movements.